Kankakee Times

It's time to go home, Lindsay Parkhurst of Kankakee, the Republican candidate in District 79, told longtime state lawmakers recently.

 

“Professional, career politicians have no place serving in our state legislature, a body that should truly be a citizen legislature,” Parkhurst told the Kankakee Times. 

 

Term limits in the Illinois House has been a continuing issue for citizens and politicians. While approximately 4 out of 5 Illinois voters favor placing term limits on legislators, the last effort in 2015, by Rep. Jack Franks (D-Marengo), never reached the House floor. House Bill 257 would have merely asked voters in 2016 if the legislature's speaker of the House, Senate president and minority leaders should be subject to term limits. It was not binding. The Legislative Leader Term Limit Act never made it out of the Rules Committee. A similar effort in the Senate also stalled, blocked by longtime lawmakers.

 

The previous year, when Republican Bruce Rauner was running for governor, he supported a term-limits amendment to the state constitution. The amendment would have imposed an eight-year limit on serving in the General Assembly. While nearly 600,000 signatures were collected by the Committee for Legislative Reform and Term Limits, a lawsuit backed by House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) successfully blocked the measure from the ballot.

 

Gov. Rauner has not given up the fight. He is now traveling the state calling for term limits and independently drawn district maps. While not a cure-all for Illinois' problems, forcing longtime legislators out of office would allow new blood into the General Assembly. Freshman lawmakers could forge new alliances and bring a willingness to work together to benefit their constituents.

 

Legislators that would be affected by term limits include Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago). Madigan has held the District 22 seat since 1971 and has served as House speaker for 31 years. Cullerton served in the House from 1979 to 1991 and in the Senate since 1991.

 

The effort to impose an independent redistricting commission in Illinois is also facing legal challenges. While more than 550,000 voters signed to add the Independent Map Amendment proposal to the November ballot, the attorney for the Illinois Democratic Party, Michael Kasper, filed a successful challenge in court. Cook County Circuit Judge Diane Larsen ruled in his favor, calling the measure unconstitutional because it was not within the "structural and procedural" changes allowed by the Illinois Constitution.

 

Independent Maps chair Dennis FitzSimons assured supporters that the group would continue the battle. In July, the Illinois Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal. The measure could be placed on the November ballot if the high court rules in favor of the amendment before Friday.

 

Parkhurst has expressed her support for the redistricting reforms as well as term limits. When drawing the lines for a district's map, the process should be fair and impartial, not an effort to keep a politician in office. By wresting the redistricting process from the legislature and putting it in the hands of an independent commission, Parkhurst, Rauner and supporters of the Independent Map Amendment believe that the voters will be fairly represented by their elected representatives.

 

“Gerrymandering is an awful process designed to disenfranchise voters and limit citizen control over state government," Parkhurst said. "Voters should be able to choose their politicians, not the other way around."

 

While previous efforts at implementing term limits and map reforms have failed, Parkhurst and other Republican candidates have vowed to carry on the fight within the legislature.

 

"I'm running for state representative for one reason - to defend our home," Parkhurst said. "Springfield is broken and that hurts our community. To fix Illinois, we must return state government to the people."